Chapter 41

"Xiao Su, what are you planning to buy?"

Jing Shizhen said with a smile, "We did agree that once you enter my warehouse, you must buy an item. Otherwise, it would break my rules."

"Uncle Jing, rest assured, I will definitely buy one."

Xiao Fan chuckled, thinking that if he couldn't afford the expensive items, he could still afford the cheaper ones. The prices of antiques and miscellaneous items were generally not high, so he could just pick one.

Before going to the room with miscellaneous items, Xiao Fan still accompanied Zhao Zhengshan to browse the porcelain area for a while.

There wasn't much to see in the calligraphy and painting section, as all the works were stored in scrolls and not displayed for the public, but kept here for better preservation.

"Jingxin Hall truly lives up to its reputation!"

After looking around the porcelain area for a while, Xiao Fan couldn't help but admire it. He had seen over twenty pieces of porcelain, all of which were genuine, with no fakes.

Moreover, the appraisal results in his mind matched almost perfectly with the small labels in front of the porcelains, indicating that each item here was of the highest quality.

"Uncle Jing, you have quite a few porcelains from the five major kilns. Why did you still buy mine?"

Xiao Fan used the restoration system to look around for a while and saw seven or eight pieces of Song Dynasty Ding kiln porcelain, all of which were more exquisite than the pen washer he had sold.

This left Xiao Fan puzzled. As a businessman, Jing Shizhen had so many porcelains that he couldn't sell, so why did he spend so much money on his?

"To cultivate the market. If you sold it for three to five million, wouldn't it lower the value of the items here?" Jing Shizhen explained with a smile.

"Indeed."

Xiao Fan felt he had learned a lot today. The knowledge he had about the antique market was far from enough here.

"Want to buy porcelain? Do you want me to introduce you to one?" Seeing Xiao Fan browsing the porcelain area, Jing Shizhen asked.

"Uncle Jing, I can't afford it. Let's go to the miscellaneous items section instead."

Xiao Fan shook his head. Most of the porcelains stored here were from the imperial kilns of various dynasties, with a minimum auction price of several million. With the few million he had, it was far from enough.

"Are you a hoarder, only taking in and never giving out?"

After selling the painting by the great artist, Jing Shizhen was in a good mood and joked with Xiao Fan.

Pushing open the door to the room storing miscellaneous antiques, Xiao Fan was immediately amazed. This room contained far more items than the porcelain and calligraphy sections.

The room for miscellaneous antiques was quite large, about forty to fifty square meters. There were many wooden racks, and almost every rack was filled with items. Xiao Fan roughly estimated that there were no fewer than ten thousand antiques in this room.

"Uncle Jing, did you collect all the good things from the market and bring them here?"

Even Zhao Zhengshan, who had seen the world, was surprised by the scene.

"Collecting these items in the early years was indeed not very costly."

Jing Shizhen spoke frankly. His family had a long tradition in the antique business, and he came to the country at the right time, with no real competitors at that time. The antiques and cultural relics he bought then might even outnumber those in some museums.

And this was just one of the larger warehouses of Jingxin Hall. Jing Shizhen had other storage places, including bank safety deposit boxes.

"These are all Buddha statues, and some bronze artifacts..."

Jing Shizhen introduced the items to the two. As the most famous antique dealer in the country, he definitely dealt in bronze artifacts, but only among acquaintances and never sold them abroad.

"Uncle Jing, if you sold all these, you might become the richest person in the country."

Looking at the various gilded Buddha statues, Xiao Fan was amazed. He knew more about miscellaneous items and understood that these Buddha statues were all high-quality pieces, with a minimum auction price of several million or even tens of millions each.

There were one or two hundred Buddha statues, each worth several million, and Xiao Fan noticed that many were from the Qing dynasty's Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong reigns, making their value incalculable.

"If I sold everything here, the antique market would be on the verge of collapse...

Xiao Su, even though you do business in the antique market, the antique business is different from what you do at your stall."

Jing Shizhen shook his head with a smile. The value of antiques lies in their scarcity.

For example, if there were only two identical porcelains in the world, each worth ten million.

If one of them were destroyed, the remaining one would not be worth twenty million, but as the only one left, its value could be eighty million or even more. This is the added value of scarcity.

The antique market also has its operating rules. Releasing a few high-quality items each year can stimulate market competition and maintain the scarcity of these items, encouraging antique enthusiasts to buy.

If Jing Shizhen really sold all his collections in a short time, it would cause a significant drop in the price of antiques.

Imagine if a rare antique, thought to be unique or very rare, suddenly appeared in dozens. Could it still maintain its original price? This would be detrimental to antique dealers, and a steady stream is the best approach.

"Uncle Jing, you're like building a pond to raise fish, throwing in some bait every now and then."

Xiao Fan was smart and understood immediately. The prosperity of the antique market today is inseparable from the behind-the-scenes efforts of major antique dealers like Jing Shizhen.

"Actually, the old items left from the past are much more than you can imagine."

Jing Shizhen continued to show them around the room. Looking at the items, Xiao Fan and Zhao Zhengshan easily understood his words.

For example, Xiao Fan saw about five or six thousand snuff bottles from the late Qing dynasty, made of various materials such as jade, agate, porcelain, glass, metal, and ivory.

Xiao Fan roughly looked at them and found that these snuff bottles were mostly high-quality pieces from the late Qing dynasty. He knew a bit about snuff bottles, and a few years ago, one in Hong Kong was auctioned for over eight million.

"Uncle Jing, was the snuff bottle auctioned in Hong Kong one of yours?"

"Seventy percent of the items auctioned there were sent by me."

Jing Shizhen didn't hide it and said with a smile, "I preheated the market in Hong Kong, so naturally, more items were sent there."

Neither of the two was a competitor to Jing Shizhen, one being a buyer and the other a junior, so he wasn't afraid to reveal some insider information about the antique business.

"The antique business is almost monopolized by you."

Xiao Fan walked to another antique rack, which was filled with purple clay teapots, at least four or five hundred, all made by famous artists.

Another area had two long glass cabinets with lights inside, displaying ancient jade pieces and a special humidifier to keep the jade moist.

"Hmm? Why are there no ritual objects?"

Xiao Fan looked at each item, but to his disappointment, none of them were ritual objects.

Actually, before entering the warehouse, Xiao Fan had intended to buy a ritual object rather than an antique that he wouldn't use much. In his restoration system, the value of ritual objects was much higher than that of antiques.

"Uncle Jing, do you not have any ritual objects here?" Xiao Fan asked directly, as there were too many items to look through in a day or two.

"There was one, but it was borrowed. A few other ritual objects are not here, as this place is too noisy and not suitable for them."

"Borrowed? Can ritual objects be borrowed?"

"Why not? Ritual objects are tools, so they can be borrowed."

"Alright, I'll keep looking."

Xiao Fan smiled bitterly, knowing that his foundation was too shallow and he had no say.

Whether it was antiques or ritual objects, Xiao Fan knew too little, and only today did he realize how deep the water in the antique business was.

"Uncle Jing, what is this? Gold ore?"

The room had two glass cabinets, both with lights inside.

Xiao Fan had been standing by a glass cabinet filled with jade and jadeite, and he thought the other one would be the same, but he was surprised when he approached it.

The glass cabinet was lined with a velvet-like pad, and on the pad were variously shaped and sized metal blocks, some with a glass-like luster.

Unlike the other cabinets with hundreds or thousands of items, this glass cabinet, about seven or eight meters long, contained only a dozen metal blocks, taking up a lot of space but not many in number.

"These are meteorites. You deal with miscellaneous items, don't you know about meteorites?"

Jing Shizhen looked at Xiao Fan strangely and then patted his forehead, saying, "Meteorite collecting is for a specific group of people. You wouldn't see them in the antique market."

"Uncle Jing, you really deal with everything, even meteorites."

Xiao Fan knew about meteorite collecting, but as Jing Shizhen said, it was a relatively new and exclusive field, mostly within a specific circle, different from antique collecting.

In China, many people classify meteorite collecting as part of miscellaneous items.

Internationally, meteorite collecting has become a major category, attracting many wealthy individuals and becoming one of the top-tier collectibles.